


Matches, Struck in the Dark

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/F, Infidelity, Isolation, Lighthouses, Magical Realism, Multi, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pseudo-Daemon AU, Pseudo-Incest, Reincarnation, Sexual Tension, brief allusions to colonialism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:40:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14394486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: A girl washes up by a lighthouse, and meets the lighthouse keeper's wife.





	Matches, Struck in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this was inspired by [this](http://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/promptsnsfw) prompt generator, which gave me the following:  
>  **Setting:**  Lighthouse  
>  **Genre:**  undefined   
>  **Trope:**  Daemons or physical soul representations in forms of animals   
>  **Prompt:**  Intimacy   
>  **Kink:**  Panties
> 
> Title comes (lightly paraphrased) from "To the Lighthouse," by Virginia Woolf.

She dreams of a great castle covered in snow, waking small and warm beneath the furs of a great beast, a mother and father and brothers all warm and kind, of feasts and folly, of dirt on her cheeks and leather breeches on her legs, no matter how much they tell her otherwise, and she dreams of swords clanging outside and her finger cut open, pricked on a sewing needle and she feels silly, foolish for letting something so silly injure her.

She wakes and she sees a woman, long auburn hair, hair that seems familiar somehow, but she's too old, too young, hang on – she opens her eyes properly and the woman is sighing, dipping a washcloth in water and pressing it to her patient's brow, only then notices said patient has woken. “You're awake.”

 _Well, yes,_  she considers saying, but it's probably worth being polite to the woman who may well have just saved her life. “So I am,” she says with a little smile, looking up at the cavernous ceiling above, dull lamplight illuminating the room, waves crashing outside. “Is this a lighthouse?”

“Yes.” It seems both of them have something of a talent for stating the obvious. “I admit, when you washed up on the rocks, I didn't really expect you to survive. You were pretty badly torn up.” She turns her head to look at this woman, and sudddenly realises she is beautiful, all red curls and high cheekbones, like a princess from a storybook. The woman bites her lip, a little shyly. “I didn't expect you to be a girl either.”

“Women's Royal Navy,” she answers, memories of wanting to do her duty for king and country, wanting to be fight for the seas like any sailor, and ending up a glorified telegraph operator, occurring briefly. The waves roar dully in her ear. “I remember a storm,” she says. “I remember – shouting and screaming. A torpedo, they said. I remember a crash, and...” she looks at the woman once more. “Were there any other survivors?”

“Only one I could see.”

And from beneath her bed comes a low, angry meow. Suddenly, the ship's cat jumps up on her, a scruffy, one-eared tom and she gasps as his paws push against her bruises.

“Careful, you,” the woman says and before grabbing him to keep him from pounding away, which leaves her surprised at how pliant he is. He's always been a stubborn bugger of a cat. “He wouldn't leave you,” the woman explains, scratching behind his one ear and getting a purr. “He kept meowing and meowing until I found you and brought you in.”

She smiles. At least someone on that ship cared about her.

“You'll have to be careful with him though,” the woman continues. “I have a pet bird.”

“He's fine with birds,” she says stubbornly, although she has no reason to believe such a thing. “We're from the Wrens.”

The woman smiles at that.

There's an awkward pause. She decides to break it. “What's your name then?” she asks.

“Elaine,” says the woman, like the name means nothing to her.

She blinks. “I'm Alana,” she says, and then laughs. “We match.”

“So we do,” says the woman, and then she drops her washcloth in the basin. “It's late, get some sleep. I'll have breakfast for you in the morning.”

* * *

“What am I wearing?”

Elaine raises her head from her breakfast, still a little shocked there is someone else with her again, and that the shipwreck was not a dream after all. The woman – Alana, her name was – looks annoyed to be clad in one of Elaine's pink nightgowns, and she sighs. “Your clothes were torn to pieces when you washed up,” she explains. “I had to put you in something.” Though she flushes a little when she sees the hem trailing along the floor, the bust stretched to breaking. “Although I might want to adjust it a little for you, admittedly.”

This Alana purses her lips together, but she has no rebuttal. Slowly, she takes the seat opposite. “How long do you expect me to be here?”

“I don't know,” she says. “I sent a telegraph, so they won't think you've gone AWOL, or your family won't read you've drowned at sea.”

“I don't have a family.”

There's a silence, and they stare at each other. Outside, the waves roar obnoxiously, but they don't say much. Elaine continues.

“But it could take weeks for anyone to come and get you. There is a war on, after all.”

Alana pouts. “What, you don't think Herr Hitler will notice my absence?” Elaine blinks at that, and then Alana laughs. “Oh well, a little unplanned rest. I can live with that.” And then she gives Elaine's bowl of porridge a look. “I don't suppose, if I'm effectively on holiday, it would be too much to ask for eggs?”

She hesitates. It's not that she wants to be a bad hostess, but... “I have to spend my rations carefully,” she says ruefully. “It's a long way to get any more.”

“Oh. Of course,” says Alana. Then she frowns. “Where are anyway?”

“An island.” More a glorified rock, really, small enough you can see from end to end from her door. It's why she prefers to stay inside really, where she can pretend the world outside as as big as she sees fits. “Does it matter which one?”

“I suppose not,” Alana shrugs. “So, are you the lighthouse keeper?”

“I'm the lighthouse keeper's wife.”

Alana frowns. “Is he around then?”

“No.” When the war broke out, she was selfishly relieved that they wouldn't want her husband, as old as he was, and with his bad leg. And yet, they did anyway, for mysterious purposes unknown and not to be shared with a pretty wife half his age, clearly not wed for her brains. Despite his promises, he has only made it back for the one Christmas.

Part of her still thinks she should never have agreed to leave London: her, always a society darling, despite her unbecoming origins, always the belle of the ball. But it was what a good wife would do, to put her husband's needs above her own.

“So, doesn't that make you the lighthouse keeper?” Alana asks, and Elaine scowls, irrationally annoyed at the question.

“Do you often talk in riddles to strangers?”

Alana seems taken aback. “No,” she says, and just then something perches on the table next to her.

They both look down and Lady chirps merrily, introducing herself to the stranger. Alana blinks, and awkwardly sticks her finger out. Lady hops aboard without a second thought. “Your bird?” the woman asks, and Elaine nods, although really, whose else could it be? “How did you find her?”

“She flew in the window one day,” Elaine tells her. “She'd just come in from a storm, the poor thing. I have no idea how she got so far from land. I thought she would die.” It had been her first Christmas alone on this rock, and she feared that if the bird died, she would go mad, she would throw herself into the ocean below. And yet, she lived.

“Do you know what sort of bird she is?”

“...No.” Just a songbird, small and sweet, and fragile. After all, it's not as if there's a vet who'd come all the way out here.

“How do you know she's a lady?”

Elaine hesitates. She has no idea. “I just do,” she says, and Alana thinks this over a moment, then nods.

“Well, I'll try and keep our cat from eating her.”

“Thank you very much,” Elaine smiles, before Alana gets up to serve herself a bowl of porridge from the stove.

* * *

“Alana, come here a moment.”

She stops and pokes her head into what passes for a living room, the walls as grey and damp as they are anywhere. She has been here three weeks or so, Elaine's clothing tight around her shoulders, and if the Navy is out looking for her it seems they're in no rush. “What is it?”

“I was sewing something. Come stand here.” Elaine speaks brusquely about it for a near-stranger, and Alana frowns, sensing she is not normally like that. A sense of deja vu hits her. With a sigh, she obediently follows into the centre of the room, standing in front of a weak, spluttering fire, struggling against the all-consuming damp. Elaine stands and pins the skirt she's adjusting to Alana's hips, and Alana squirms a little at the fingers soft and featherlike skimming against her skin. “It'll still be long on you, I ought to take the hem up.”

Alana pulls a face. “I don't like skirts,” she says, and Elaine sighs deeply as if she's heard that a thousand times before, although she's been polite enough not to comment on Alana appropriating her husband's trousers, using rope for a belt, and rolling the cuffs up so much it's half the damn length of them.

“Well you'll have to wear them on ship,” Elaine tells her, and Alana is annoyed. Yes, she knows what her uniform is, she doesn't need it pointed out. “Do you think the waistband's too small?”

“I'm not fat,” Alana spits at her.

Elaine is taken aback. “...I never said you were.” And in the silence that falls, the waves outside take over her ears. A queer feeling comes over Alana, like when you have a tune stuck in your head, but can't for the life of you remember the words.

“Sorry,” she mutters, “I suppose I just started – bickering, automatically.”

Why she would do that is as much a mystery to her as it is to anyone, and she almost expects Elaine to ask, but she doesn't. She just smiles prettily. “Come on, put the skirt on,” she says, and Alana sighs. It's the least she can do for this kind stranger.

* * *

If there is one part of keeping a lighthouse she likes the least, even less than being trapped on a rock miles from anywhere, it is keeping the light itself, making the arduous climb to the top of her home to set some oil on fire for ships she's sure are nowhere near.

“Come, you can help me,” she tells her visitor, relieved to no longer be alone in her duties, and giving the ship's cat a brief scratch behind his ear before they start the journey up.

 _There are so many stairs_ , she thinks as they spiral towards the beacon, growing dizzy and breathless. This climb always makes her feel weak and frail, which is why she loathes it so. She stops a second, lest she faint and break her neck. If she fell and died, who would ever find her?

A hand lands upon her shoulder. “Are you alright?” And Elaine spins around, remembering she is not alone here, and Alana stares with a mixture of concern and trepidation. She doesn't want to overstep her bounds, but she doesn't want Elaine to fall either.

She smiles. “I'm quite alright,” she insists. “Just a little woozy, that's all.” And Alana frowns like she's about to suggest heading back, leaving the ships to their fate. “Come on, let's go.”

Before she can resume her journey, however, they hear a little chirp, and they both look back curiously to find Lady flapping her way to them, settling on Elaine's shoulder. She makes a nonplussed noise. “I thought you were in your cage,” she says, and Lady leans against her shoulder, her feathers soft and sweet. Alana laughs, and Elaine sighs. “Alright. The three of us then.”

With that support, she makes it up to the beacon, flinching as she pours a thing of oil, taking a moment to examine her rations running low. There is never enough oil. It is such a small task, for the end of such a great climb.

“I hate the smell of this stuff,” she says as she puts the oil into the beacon, and a drop of it splashes upon her wrist.

“I don't mind it,” says Alana, and somehow that is unsurprising, but before Elaine can really consider the fact she hears: “let me.”

She blinks in surprise as Alana strikes a match, easily throwing it into the beacon. The light flares up and Elaine winces a moment, before turning and giving the girl by her side a curious look.

“Have you lit many fires, then?” she asks, only somewhat joking.

Alana hesitates. “Probably,” she says, and Elaine frowns. That could mean anything. “I think I must have done.” Something strange is happening, she knows that, and she takes a moment to stare into the signal now burning bright. Alana sighs. “Come on, back downstairs. I'll make us a cup of tea.”

* * *

“That's a pretty bracelet,” she says on one of the days that keep blending into each other, and it's not really like her to notice such things, but she gets the impression Elaine is. Where she gets that idea, she's not quite sure, since the woman wears the same three frocks every day (not helping Alana keep track of how long she's been here), but she always looks impeccably put together regardless. Alana is just trying to be polite.

Elaine suddenly puts down her embroidery, looking at the bracelet as if she forgot it was there. She smiles shyly, blushing. Alana suddenly feels horribly embarrassed for no damn reason at all. “Thank you,” says Elaine, quietly, and then, after a moment's hesitation, decides to tell the bracelet's whole life story. “It was a present from my husband's friend,” she says. “He'd been all over the world. He says it came from India, though I'm not sure I believe him. But still, I've had it since I was a girl.”

Alana frowns. “How long have you known your husband, then?” she asks, a little confused.

“...A long time. Since I was born.” Alana is caught off-guard, and Elaine squirms as she explains. “I was raised by his family. Mine were – servants, and they died not long after I was born. Their masters were kind enough to take me in. And it's not how it sounds.” She raises an eyebrow. She never said it sounded like anything at all. “He was already off overseas before I was even born. I didn't see much of him until I was of age. It was all perfectly respectable, and his parents were thrilled.”

She nods along, not wanting this woman whose charity she's relying on to think she thinks any less of her. “So, he's a lot older than you then?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Elaine snaps.

Alana blinks. “Nothing,” she says, although she suspects maybe it does have something to do with something, if that's the reaction she gets. Still, it's not worth arguing over, and she reminds herself to mind her own business for once.

A pregnant pause fills their cold damp sitting room, waves crashing into the rocks below, and then Elaine sighs. “Sorry. You're only curious. I had no reason to snap like that.” Alana blinks, more surprised than she ought to be by the apology, and then Elaine looks down at her bracelet once more. “My sister – well, the closest thing I've had to a sister – she used to tell me he gave me this because he wanted me. Though she said that about every young man that entered the house. She was very sweet, but she did love to tease.” Alana is strangely offended a moment, and then she reminds herself she has no idea who any of these people are. “Still. Sometimes I wonder: what if I'd married another man, gone off to travel the world, to see everything that could be seen, meet everyone who could be met? I was such a socialite back in London.” Elaine smiles to herself, and then stops, picking up her embroidery once more. “No. It wouldn't have been for me. I wanted the simple life, the easy life. Safety, security, domesticity. A family.”

Alana flinches. She knows the feeling. Growing up in the home, she used to remember staring enviously out windows watching other children walking down the streets, sometimes so poor they didn't even have shoes on, but smiling as they trotted hand in hand with mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles and grandparents. It's a feeling she's never quite conquered. Perhaps she was looking for that in the navy when she joined, to belong to something bigger than herself, but while she liked her crewmates well enough she does not think she found whatever it was she missed out on, growing up a poor little orphan.

It was probably worse for her than Elaine, who at least had a family, and a family rich enough for servants, to take her in. But as she watches the woman quietly do her needlework, she suddenly realises how terrible it must be, left alone on this rock, with only the waves and her little bird for company.

“And he just left you here?” she asks, scandalised.

Elaine pauses, but does not look up before answering. “It's not like that,” she says quietly. “We all have to make sacrifices for the war. He'll be back when he can be.”

She purses her lips together, swallowing the lump in her throat. Part of her wants to hit something, part of her wants to sob. “Until then, you're his perfect lady, weaving and unweaving until he returns?”

 _The Odyssey,_  she thinks, and she wonders if Elaine will wonder how she knows it. She can't quite remember how she does know it. But Elaine just bites her lip. “I'm not a lady,” she says, and she finally meets Alana's eye once more.

The little bird, safely in her cage, twitters in her sleep. Alana stares at Elaine, and does her best not to scoff. Still, she does not care about what her father did and all that. If this woman isn't a lady, then no-one is.

* * *

Elaine wakes in the morning and comes down to see a pile of pancakes towering in front of her, and wonders if she's dreaming. She turns to see Alana in front of the stove, flour all over her nose and cheeks, the cat up on the counter next to her. “Did you make these?” she says, indicating the plate. It's a foolish question. Unless she did it while sleepwalking, who else possibly could have?

Alana turns to her and grins. “Well, I might be here awhile, I ought to pull my weight,” she says, and beside her the cat swishes his tail proudly. “Go on, tuck in.”

She takes a seat at the kitchen table, bemused. She knows she was spoiled growing up, ward of one of the most important families in London. Coming to the lighthouse was always going to be a shock, and perhaps that's why being left alone here has been so difficult for her. Part of her feels almost like she's being lured into a trap, like somehow she'll prove she's just as weak and foolish as she fears if she bites into something she didn't make with her own sweat and tears. But they're just pancakes, and Alana did go to the trouble.

A heaping serve goes onto her plate, and she digs in greedily. They're not perfect, the pancakes, lumpy in places and one is burnt a little about the edges, but they're good.

Alana sits opposite and helps herself to a pile, one that makes Elaine's generous serve look somewhat stingy. She raises an eyebrow at first, but then reminds herself the woman is in the navy, she must need the energy. They eat in silence a moment, a strange, familiar comfort falling over them, like returning to a room you forgot you had.

“I'll admit, I'm a little surprised,” Elaine says between mouthfuls. “You didn't look like a cook to me.”

After she's said it, she realises how rude that was, but Alana just shrugs. “Well, I had to learn,” she says. “I've always had to take care of myself.” And of course. Elaine feels very stupid. “But I'll admit, I probably won't ever be some Victorian housewife. You won't get me into an apron.”

“Pity,” Elaine comments, unthinking. Alana gives her look, and she blushes, not sure herself what she meant by that. Luckily, just then a mewl comes from beneath the table, distracting them.

She looks down to see the cat from Alana's ship winding his way between Alana's legs, and she squints at him suspiciously. “Have you been feeding that cat our breakfast?”

“...Maybe.” Alana looks sheepish, and just then takes a piece of her pancake off her fork to pass it under the table.

Elaine should be concerned about the waste of rations, and she doesn't think cats should even eat pancakes, but instead she just laughs. “Spoiled thing,” she says, and the cat purs as it crosses the breadth of the table, rubbing against her shin.

* * *

One of the few times they leave the lighthouse, it's to of all things, go fishing. Alana is caught off-guard when Elaine suggests it, but the woman explains it's simply a matter of making the food they have go as far as it can. The journey back to the mainland is hard and treacherous, and Elaine wasn't expecting to have to feed two. Alana nods, and trudges out into the icy air obligingly, even though she has no idea how to fish. Still, she gets the hang of it surprisingly quickly, for a girl who spent most of her life in the city.

The gale makes her eyes water, and staring across the grey churning ocean, she can understand why Elaine does not go outside much. This rock seems smaller and further from everything out here. Alana squints, trying spot land, but nothing. If you slipped and fell from here, no-one would ever find you again. It makes Alana wonder why there even is a lighthouse here. She hasn't seen any ships since her own washed up. Still, if it wasn't here she would be dead, so she shouldn't be ungrateful.

She watches as Elaine's hair whips across her body, and she waits, patiently, for the fish to come to her. The woman's skin turns blue in the cold. Frowning, Alana sidles up to her, leaning against her shoulder. When Elaine jumps, she just shrugs. “You looked cold.”

“I-I'm not cold,” Elaine tells her, teeth chattering.

At that, Alana simply rolls her eyes. “Well, I am,” she says, and that is the end of that. They huddle for warmth as they find their dinner, and she tries to ignore her heart racing.

They come back in with five juicy trout to their names, and are greeting by an empty birdcage by the door.

Elaine stops dead, and Alana can see the panic flooding her face. “Lady?!” she calls out, voice high and girlish. “Lady, where are you?” She waits for the birdsong to tell her everything's alright, but there is only a terrible silence in this empty house. Lady usually flies freely, but Elaine put her in the cage before they left, thinking she'd be safer. “Lady!”

“I'm sure she's alright,” Alana insists, dread thickening her throat, not sure at all. “She's probably just off looking for worms or someth–”

And Elaine rounds on her. “You did this!” she says, and Alana is taken aback.  _What? How?_  “That bloody cat of yours! He got her out of her cage, and now he's eaten her?”

“He wouldn't do that!” she snaps immediately, but really, how can she know for sure? That's what cats  _do_. And she barely even knows this cat. “The bird's fine, why are you so worried?”

“How dare you–”

 _She's just off flying. Just because you keep yourself locked up here, why should she?_  Alana almost adds, but before she can, their shouting is interrupted by a tiny noise. She blinks and there is Lady, perched on Elaine's shoulder, looking back and forth between the two of them curiously.

Elaine seems just as puzzled at first, and then, after she registers it, her face crumples. “Sorry,” she says, and Lady hops off her shoulder and hovers about nervously, letting Elaine cover her face with her hands. “Sorry, sorry, I overreacted. I shouldn't have been so–”

“Hey, hey, it's alright,” Alana tells her, the coil in her stomach loosening, and a strange feeling of recognition settles over her, though she doesn't know what it is she's recognising. “I mean, I would have felt terrible if he had eaten her.”

Elaine gives a choked half-laugh, wiping her tears hurriedly. “It's just – she's been my only companion, for so long. Without her–”

“You'd be alone.” Elaine purses her lips together, as if she's only just admitted it to herself, and awkwardly, Alana grasps her arm. “You're not though,” she says. “Not right now. I'm here.”

She's not sure what makes her say it. She's half-afraid the woman is going to push her away, to tell her not to be stupid. But Elaine just nods, and for a long moment they just stare at each other, neither sure what they're meant to do now.

Then the cat comes up behind her, nosing at the fish, and Elaine laughs while Alana shooes him away. The moment passes.

* * *

Alana is starting to wear her husband's clothes down until the knees fray (and Elaine wonders how to explain that, but she doubts he'll notice), and so while cooking dinner one night Elaine tells her: “You know, you can take a look through my wardrobe if you like. I'm sure you could find something that's not too girlish.”

Of course the dresses she owns that are least girlish are the three she wears each day, caught in an endless cycle of practicality, but she says it thoughtlessly, and Alana disappears upstairs with a nod. Elaine simply sighs and waits, but when the girl does not return, she grows curious, maybe a little nervous. Once the beans have simmered she turns the heat down, and she's afraid they'll grow cold, but still she heads up to her room, wondering what her visitor could have found there.

When she pokes her head through the door she finds Alana perched on the end of her bed with a dress in hand, a red velvet evening gown that Elaine hasn't worn in half a decade now. “That wasn't quite what I meant,” comments, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Alana looks up at her, surprised, and frowns. “These are beautiful,” she says, and she gestures toward the wide-open wardrobe ,almost accusatory. “Why don't you wear them?”

Elaine steps into the room, and she flushes when she looks into the wardrobe, dozens of dresses hanging there dusty and mothworn. She used to be such a fashionplate when she was young, always in the society pages. She almost feels guilty for owning so much fabric when she knows they need it for more important things. “There wouldn't be much point, would there?” she says, quiet. She has to be practical. She wouldn't want to get oil on her fancy gowns. “No-one will see me in them.”

“You should wear them anyway,” says Alana, and she hops to her feet. Elaine only turns a deeper crimson when the girl presses the dress against her hand, shivering at the velvet feeling. “Put it on.”

Her mouth drops open.  _Don't be silly,_  she wants to say, or maybe  _don't you tell me what to do,_  but words don't come easy all of a sudden. It's like a voice is calling her, from high in the sky and deep below the ocean surface, and from the walls themselves. “Give me a moment?” she whispers.

Alana nods and steps outside, the door closing with a  _thud_. Elaine shivers as the wind raps against her window. Hurriedly, she discards her plain blue frock, and crawls into something so beautiful she feels unnatural to be seen it in. The red swallows up her shoulders daintily, and the skirt is full and flowing about her waist. She remembers how she felt when she first bought this dress, how excited. She never wanted for anything as a girl, and for that, she is eternally grateful to her guardians. Still, somehow she always knew, no matter how many dresses she bought, she was and always would be a charity case.

When she married, it was a bit different. She was a part of the family then. But then they disappeared to this rock, so it did not actually make much difference.

She leaves the room to see Alana, clad in her husband's clothes, grinning at her. “See? I knew you'd be beautiful.” And Elaine blushes again, almost wanting to slap the girl, to tell her to stop teasing, even though she has no reason to think that's the case.

Instead she lets her eyes trail down the spiralling staircase, feeling dizzy at the sight. “If I trip and break my neck, it's your fault.”

Alana doesn't answer, simply sighing and winding her arm around Elaine's back, half-carrying her down the stairs despite how much shorter she is, and Elaine's flesh turns to goosepimples.

Once they make it downstairs, Elaine means to shephard them to the kitchen and eat their dinner as planned (although she does worry about staining her lovely dress now), but Alana stops her. She finds the girl has dragged out the gramophone she brought with her from London, a rare concession to joy, unused for a few years now. And she's put a record on, the creaky noise of singing filling the stone walls.

“What are you–?” but before Elaine can even finish the sentence this girl has her hand wound in Elaine's own, an arm around her waist, wordlessly inviting her to dance. Elaine flushes once more. “You are ridiculous,” she says, but she can't help grinning. She hasn't danced in years.

It soon emerges that Alana doesn't really know how to dance, swaying awkwardly in time with the music, and so Elaine takes the lead. But she doesn't mind. For the first time in years, she allows herself to feel proud. What she knows might be pointless, trivial, but she does know it.

As they dance the night away Alana starts to mouth along with the record, her lips curling into the words of a foreign tongue. Elaine tilts her head to the side. “Do you know this song?” she asks curiously.

Alana, who clearly didn't realise what she was doing, stops. “I suppose I must,” she says, sounding just as confused as Elaine.

“I think it's Irish,” Elaine adds, none too helpfully. “Is your family Irish?”

“Not as far as I know,” says Alana, and then Elaine remembers,  _I don't have a family._  So that answers nothing, but still the conversation fades away, chased to it's logical conclusion. And they dance.

They dance until she grows tired, until her legs ache, until she would have once settled onto the loveseat and let her suitors come to her. That should be her queue to stop this silliness and go have dinner as they had planned, but instead once she's too weary to move anymore, they just stand there, music still playing, staring at one another.

Something is happening. The midnight roar of the waves reaches a thundering crescendo, almost deafening. There is something so  _familiar_  about this girl, there has been ever since she washed up on the shore. Alana is smiling up at her, like she understands perfectly, and part of her yearns to reach out and take, to get something back she did not know she'd lost.

“Alana,” she whispers beneath the waves. “I'm married.”

“You wouldn't be the first,” the girl says, breath warm and sweet against her lips. “Tempted by a handsome sailor while your husband's off at war.” They kiss, soft as a summer breeze and that seems to be that. They could not pull apart now if they tried.

Then they are back up in her room, like it's all a dream happening fast, sea and song all the same. She gasps as she falls onto her sheets crisp with salt-air, squirming as this girl's small, quick fingers find her hem. “Wrong,” she murmurs, stirring with memories of the scandal it could have been if she'd done this in London, words from a Church she's not seen in years, and then she whines as Alana kisses her neck.

“Don't care,” a simple statement, and Elaine moans as the girl leaves a mark upon her skin, a hand between her legs, rubbing her through her white silk bloomers. She bites her lip and arches toward the movement, and then her mouth is claimed once more.

“You've not? With a woman?” Alana whispers but at inch from her face, and Elaine, blushing and feeling a silly girl again, nods. But the woman just nods, pulling her underthings away easily, smirking and crawling down the bed.

There is something terribly familiar, and yet something utterly new, like coming home to somewhere she's never been before. And beneath it all is a strange sense of bubbling guilt, more than the memory of her marriage bed or bible verses can explain. But still, she cries out when she feels the girl's tongue pressed against her, and she wants to do  _something_ , but she feels too lost, overwhelmed. She can only wrap her fingers in the messy dark hair and hold on for dear life.

“Gods,” she whispers as the girl's hums against her slit, circling her most sensitive areas and then sliding in to push in and out of her a second, making her thrash and tangle her red locks on the pillow.

Outside a storm has broke, thundering down on their roof so loud it drowns out her thoughts. When she looks down she sees the girl with a hand down her trousers, and it makes her gasp, it makes her laugh. It's like they're finally in order, synchronised, and they've fixed something she did not know was broken. She likes this and  _she_  likes doing this, and it all seems so simple.

Her peak comes upon her quick, and she tugs desperately at her sister's hair, letting out a desperate cry of foreign words: “Arya!”

Everything goes white then as lightning cracks overhead, her bliss swallowing her whole. In the moment she feels furs wrapped around her body, keeping her warm. She sees smiles, proud of her when she shows them what she's made with her ribbon and thread. The snow is melting in her hair.

When she surfaces she is lying on her side, and the storm has settles somewhat, but a dull rhythmic pound of rain on the windowsill. And she weeps.

Why she cannot say, joy or guilt, but the tears don't stop. Behind her, Alana holds her close, warm and soft and whispering into her neck,  _ess_ es soft against her skin. Elaine only cries harder. What is it she is so happy about it? What is the terrible thing she's done? All she knows is she cannot bring herself to roll over and look at the girl she's lying with, for she fears if she does she'll never look away.

Eventually, she settles into sleep, tears drying on her cheeks and held tight in the cold night, and warm fingers petting her gently.

* * *

The ship comes from her in the morning, and Alana wakes at the crack of dawn, listening to the blaring foghorn, the awful noise of reality. She turns and looks to the woman clinging to her in her sleep, and winces in pain and guilt. Slowly, she extracts herself from beneath the grip, and makes herself look as presentable as possible.

She should have known Elaine wouldn't stay asleep. “You're going now?” she asks quietly.

Alana turns and nods. “I have to,” she whispers, and somehow it's all too familiar. One of them always leaves, and one of them always gets left behind, left alone.

She leans over sighing, hoping to somehow make this whole strange story make sense in a moment, and then Elaine just seizes her hand and grips her. “Will you come back?”

“Yes. Of course.” She does not know that until she says it. She has no idea how she would: she doesn't even know where this damn rock is. But she will come back, she  _must_. Elaine grasps her hand tighter, not wanting to let go, and Alana feels ready to cry herself. “Come with me,” she says, she begs. “There's nothing for you here. Take your bird and go.”

And she's tempted, she's clearly tempted. She wants to leave this rock and return to the world. They both wants to be together again. But Elaine closes her eyes sadly. “But then who would man the lighthouse?” she asks, giving herself up in service of something greater.

Alana can't answer that. Instead, she kisses the woman's brow again, kissing goodbye. Then she is gone, as she is always gone.

* * *

Elaine wakes in the morning and eats her dinner for breakfast, and before long it's easy to think the girl was just a dream, or a madness brought on by being left here so long. Even that cat is gone, and Lady tweets sadly in her cage, seemingly as lonely as she is. The lighthouse seems colder and quieter now, and Elaine does her best not to weep anymore. It's not as if there is anyone to help dry her tears.

She looks through her wardrobe and finds a pink dress. It's not quite as glamorous as the red velvet, but it's frillier and more ladylike than the three she's worn for as many years. She sews up the mothbites and puts it on. It might get dirty, but she'll take the risk.

A few weeks later (she thinks, the days all blend together here), something even stranger than the girl washing up happens. She hears a knock at the door.

She stares down her spiralling steps, wondering if she's not really losing her mind. Who could possibly knock on her door? There is no-one but her for miles. Could it be her husband, finally returned to her? She feels a strange mix of guilt and anger at the thought of him coming home  _now_. But if it were him, she would have heard the boat.

When she comes downstairs and opens her door, there's no-one there. She looks around bewildered, thinking she really must be going mad, until she looks to her feet. And lying there is a box, containing, wrapped in blankets and newspaper, two puppies.

She has certain weaknesses. “Aww,” she says and immediately drops to her knees, watching as one of them sleeps happily while the other is busy scratching Mr. Baldwin's face in the old newsprint. Elaine laughs at them, and wonders where on earth they could have come here. The thinks they're Russian dogs, the type the use to pull sleighs in Siberia. But why on Earth would the Russians give her puppies?

It is no matter. The poor things will clearly die without her, and so she scoops them up and takes them into her own. The sleeping one cracks an eye open, giving her a dog-ish smile before the other swipes a paw at her, insisting it's time to play.  _Sisters,_  thinks Elaine. Across the room Lady twitters, flying over, curious about the new arrivals.

And Elaine smiles at her strange menagerie, listening to the waves outside, feeling a little less alone.


End file.
